


I'd stake my life on dreams

by Quente



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Actor RPF - Freeform, M/M, Restraint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 03:36:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11912391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quente/pseuds/Quente
Summary: Smut and feelings, basically.“What I wanted to preserve was the turbulent gasp in his voice which lingered with me for days afterward and told me that, if I could have him like this in my dreams every night of my life, I'd stake my entire life on dreams and be done with the rest.”― André Aciman, Call Me by Your Name





	I'd stake my life on dreams

“Where are you?” Timothée scooted his chair a little closer to the balcony window, staring over the rooftops of Manhattan, trying to find the stars. There was too much ambient light for more than the brightest to emerge. A memory washed over him -- a quiet country lane, a glade, an easy laugh and an arm to steady him when he stumbled in the dark.

“Just -- hang on,” Armie’s voice was softer for a moment. There was noise in the background, and Timothée grinned, imagining the cheerful bustle of the bakery. “Can you hold Ford for a second? I’m going to go take this call.” A woman’s voice responded, faint and exasperated. 

“Am I that important?” Timothée teased, listening to the sounds recede, the gurgling of the baby giving way to the quiet hum of traffic. 

“Yeah, kid. Of course.” That warm voice curled around Timothée’s ears like the far-away Southern sun. “What’s up?”

Timothée took a breath. “Well first, I miss you. It’s cool that you’re between things and can be home for a while.”

There was another pause, and Timothée heard Armie’s inhale. Then a sigh. “Yeah. Home is good. But -- it was kind of like reliving production to see you in Cannes.”

There had been a moment, after the Cannes premiere, when Armie turned to him in the elevator, frowning. They’d been going back to their respective hotel rooms after a late night watching the film again, and then taking audience questions. “What did you mean that you had to detox for a month after the shoot was over?”

Timothée had stuttered through his answer then, regretted it ever since. And now, it was time to tell the truth.

“It was a little too good,” Timothée forced himself to say, feeling his cheeks heat up, his voice rasping a little. Honesty was painful. “I remembered how good it was.”

Another patch of silence, another sigh. “Timmy…” The voice sounded slightly sad. “I wondered if you felt that way.”

“Yeah. I did. Did you?” The question was out before Timothée could stop it, and he felt his face burn, dropping his nose into his palm. This was probably the worst way to talk about it, like a teenager (ok, just barely not) with a crush.

More silence. In the background of the late summer evening, Timothée could hear the high shrill of crickets -- cicadas? -- from the small-town Texas street. Far away, on the other side of the phone. Literal crickets.

Finally, a reply. “I wanted more. I wanted...more of you.” 

Well.

Timothée stared unseeing past his fingers. He hadn’t been expecting that confession, and suddenly every bit of his body ached fiercely for the spring nights of a year ago, to take the sweet synergy they’d developed on set and light it on fire.

“I guess -- I guess we can’t?” It came out more like a question than Timothée wanted.

Another, deeper breath. “I waited to see if this went away. But here you are, and here I am, and I want to corner you and … Remember that wall? I want that. Among other things.”

It was kind of the hottest thing Timothée had ever filmed, that longing moment of tension, of desire, of giving everything you had to someone. “Mmh.” Timothée’s voice was a muffled whimper, out from the hand over his face. But Armie was still talking.

“It’ll be a tough talk, but Liz told me...that if I needed it, she’d listen.”

Timothée felt his stomach sink to his feet, his groin ache. “I’ve never been so embarrassed and so turned on in my life,” he mumbled into the phone. 

“I want you, kid.” The voice was raw and simple, so honest. “I’ll see what I can figure out. Liz sets my rules.”

“Okay.” 

“Okay. I’ll let you know.”

The phone went dead, and Timothée put it down, put both hands over his face and tilted back to stare into his palms. 

Oh. Oh, shit. He was never going to be able to look Elizabeth in the face again. 

On the other hand, Timothée urgently needed to queue up his advance copy of Armie reading out loud from _That book_ and slowly, slowly touch his own dick.

~

A month and a lot of phone calls later, they were meeting in neutral territory. 

Timothée felt impossibly young, especially standing in front of a woman who clearly had the steel core of Scarlett O’Hara inside her carefully constructed exterior. Timothée had: youth, his Louis Garrel hair, and an impossible connection to her husband. Miss Elizabeth had: everything else.

She was surveying him with some compassion, though, as he stood out in front of the small cottage that her family owned, near a lake in Tennessee. The kids were in the car, the baby asleep and Hunter with her little nose pressed to the glass, watching them with vast curiosity.

Timothée felt like dying, like maybe his cheeks would be stained permanently red, but Armie’s hand settled on his shoulder, and everything felt a little better.

“Okay, boys,” Elizabeth said, her smile a little wry. “If you need me, you know where to find me.”

Timothée had no words. They were dead in his throat, and he stared down at Liz’s graceful feet, clad in practical sandals, each toenail precisely painted in pink gold. 

Armie stepped close to her, then, and Timothée watched as they embraced, sharing wordless things that couples do. It reminded him of his own parents. What was he doing, sliding between these two?

“One more thing, Timmy,” Elizabeth said, stepping back from Armie, her hand pushing gently at his chest. “This guy is clumsy. He’ll probably cut himself or break something at least once in your,” she paused, “Boy’s weekend. There’s an enormous first-aid kit all decked out in the kitchen. Also, I put some of my jambalaya in the fridge -- it should be enough to last a few days.”

“How much do you love this guy? This is a lot,” Timothée mumbled, peeking at her through his hair. They were of a height, and this was awkward.

“Enough to remind him who to come home to,” Liz said, her smile faintly wistful, and Timothée nodded. “I’d rather know who he’s with than not.”

Fair enough. Still, Timothée hung his head as she breathed out her goodbye against Armie’s skin, and said, “Get it out of your system, ok?” with a laugh.

“I’ll call you,” Armie said quietly back to her, and they shared a smile before she left.

“Your wife is terrifying,” Timothée said, watching the Subaru put treads down into the packed dirt road.

“She’s Texan,” Armie said. “And I’m so in love with her.”

Timothée nodded and decided to leave that right where it lay. It wasn’t his business. Instead, he thought back, remembered lines.

“So,” Timothée said in his best Oliver voice, “What do you do around here?”

Armie blinked, and then he laughed. “Let’s go fishing.”

~

That night, on the back balcony in the cool of the evening, they had bowls of fragrant jambalaya beneath the fish they’d caught, somehow, and scaled (Timothée never wanted to do that again), and grilled. There was a bottle of Tennessee whiskey between them, smoky and old, part of the stock that never left the cabin.

The view down to the lake was of nothing but trees and grass, and the stars were just emerging from the sky.

“Why’d you call me, finally?” Armie said, leaning back and taking a sip of his drink. They’d talked of nothing, really, all afternoon. Just work and memories, light chatter as if feeling each other out. But now it seemed like it was time.

“I saw a newspaper article, actually.”

“About me? Or the movie?”

“No -- it was something sad, just a random incident of violence out of a lot of others. There was no reason why it struck me more than anything else, but my first thought was, I’ve wasted a lot of time.”

“Reminds me of what Elio says in that book: _Time is always borrowed._ ”

“You just finished recording it, didn’t you? I listened to you. I have a copy. How did it go?”

Armie flashed one of his slow grins, took a sip of the golden liquid. “It was hot. I was thinking of you, every single day. It was like I was crawling inside Elio’s skin -- your skin -- and I remembered every minute of those months we spent shooting, even though it’s been a year.”

Timothée covered his face again, and wondered when this would all make him stop blushing. His rental car was in the garage, and suddenly he had the desire to get in it, drive back to the airport, go back to his quiet life in a big city where he could interact with the world through the screen of Instagram.

“Hey. Hey. Don’t be afraid. When I said I wanted you -- I wanted this.” Armie’s fingers gently closed around Timothée’s wrist, and he looked up, wondering what Armie meant. “I just wanted to be able to be here with you, shooting the shit, close enough to touch you if I wanted.”

“Just touch?” Timothée’s face was burning. “Armie. I remember how hard I’d get on the set, lying around with you, hoping to god that everyone would ignore my raging boner.”

Armie laughed, caught Timothée’s eyes with his, direct and plain. “Obviously, I wouldn’t say no.”

“Let’s kiss again,” Timothée said, and he felt breathless already. He stood up, shifted his hand so that he could tug Armie up too. There they were together, hips against the balcony railing, and Timothée remembered how freaking tall the guy was. 

Armie slid fingers beneath Timothée’s chin, tilted his head a little, and then just looked at him, tracing the edge of his lip with a thumb.

“Listen. This isn’t just a weekend.”

“No? I thought Liz said to get it out of your --”

“She meant the urgent part, the longing. This isn’t just that.”

“I’m relieved,” Timothée said, and felt a bit of something course through his blood. He was probably grinning like an idiot. “I thought I was going to be a weekend fling.”

“No. Never. You reminded me of something I’ve forgotten.” Armie leaned closer, and his eyes were dancing with some emotion. Joy? Mischief? It was a weird look for another kind of first kiss, and Timothée couldn’t help laughing.

“What do I remind you of?”

Their mouths were together before Timothée got an answer.

~

A snippet of time later, they were on a bed in the sparely furnished loft room, with a triangular window open to the lake at one end of it, all lit by the trail of moonlight. The sheets were soft and blue, and they were still in their underwear, but not for the lack of Timothée trying.

“Not yet,” Armie said sternly, gripping Timothée’s wrists above his head on the bed, Timothée’s legs were weighed down by a length of thigh. Armie leaned in and kissed him again, and it was slow, slow.

When they parted, Timothée smiled from the joy and frustration, his lips feeling raw and wet both at once. “Tell me already. What is it that made you think I’d be a good… addition to this crazy life of yours?”

Fuck -- Timothée was so freaking hard. They both were. But of course, Armie was some kind of teasing bastard who enjoyed using his size to his advantage.

“You first. What do you mean, you had to detox for a month afterwards? You never really answered me then. Tell me.” 

Armie’s mouth dropped to his neck, and Timothée felt teeth sinking in -- the faint smell of whiskey rose from his skin, mingled with the stronger scent of sweat. He suppressed his groan. 

“Wasn’t it obvious?” Timothée scowled, straining for a moment, testing that hard grip on his wrists again. “It’s embarrassing. I fell for you so damned hard. I hurt, after it was done. Whenever I see videos of the pressers, all I see is that I’m leaning toward you with my eyes shining like you hung the moon, and I just want to die. The whole world probably noticed it.”

The hand around his wrists fell away and he was enveloped in the tightest of hugs.

“That’s it -- that’s what I saw in you. Something fierce, eligible to burst forth … ah. Wait, that poem.” Armie actually got off the bed and walked to the small bookshelf, looking through the spines.

Timothée sat up, biting his lip, staring at Armie’s nearly naked limbs in the moonlight. Was now really the time for poetry? Shouldn’t it be the time for fucking? But whatever time it was, Armie was back with a battered paperback of Leaves of Grass.

“Geez.” Timothée flopped back on the bed. “Whitman? Really?”

Armie smirked, opening the book to a dogeared page, and tugged Timothée up and close again. Timothée felt the words buzzing against the skin of his shoulder from Armie’s mouth before he heard them, staring down at the page -- he felt enveloped into Armie’s world, but he also wanted to be there, badly.

“Earth! my likeness!  
Though you look so impassive, ample and spheric  
there,  
I now suspect that is not all;  
I now suspect there is something fierce in you, eligible  
to burst forth;  
For an athlete is enamoured of me—and I of him,  
But toward him there is something fierce and terrible  
in me, eligible to burst forth,  
I dare not tell it in words—not even in these songs.”

“Fierce and terrible.” Timothée felt the urge to mock it for a moment, snark and say, _he means anal, right_?

But instead he turned and looked at Armie, who couldn’t look at him, whose face looked like he’d just opened up his soul.

“You want to wreck me.”

“Yeah.” 

“Then, let’s go.”

~

“Wrecking” meant one thing to a 21-year-old (a short thing, maybe an hour, max), and another thing to a 30-year-old. Armie was nothing if not slow and methodical, slow like the mounting pressure of a Hitchcock film, and all about denial until Timothée was willing to give in to just about anything.

Timothée was on his stomach, his wrists crossed behind the small of his back and gripped in Armie’s warm hand, his dick trapped against the sheets… his legs spread.

Armie was biting the back of his thigh, and Timothée felt like crying.

“Please,” he whispered. The darkness was nearly total now, the moon passed beyond the edge of the roof long ago. There was nothing but the strong body holding him in place and teasing him, holding him helpless.

“What would you do for me in return?” Armie’s voice dropped low.

“I’ll slide you into my mouth. I know you like my lips. I--I saw you stare at my mouth when we ate together, sometimes.”

“I don’t deny that. Not at all. Not a bad bargain. What do you want in return?”

“I … your tongue on me.” This was agony, so embarrassing.

“Have you done it with anyone before?”

“Never,” Timothée said into the pillow, hips shifting again to rub helplessly against the sheets until a small smack of Armie’s hand on his ass stilled him.

Armie’s tongue stroked up, grazed the underside of his balls, and Timothée moaned.

“Here?”

“That’s a good start,” Timothée gasped.

With a chuckle, Armie took pity on him, and a moment later he felt his wrists free again, and the tight grip shifted to his hips, holding him firmly down while Armie let his tongue slide in the slowest of drags over sensitive, sensitive skin.

~

The sun was just barely up over the lake when Armie finally, finally pushed inside him. Timothée’s body felt so used and held down and held back that he welcomed even that hard, counterintuitive stretch that ached as it filled him up.

But at least now, in the light of dawn, it was finally simple. Timothée’s arms were loose, so he slid his fingers into Armie’s hair, held his face close and kissed him, felt Armie’s mouth slide along the tears brought by the stinging ache, by being opened up and new, just for Armie, all for him.

Timothée wondered what his face looked like when he finally came, the orgasm wrung out of his exhausted body while he took Armie’s cock, deep.

Armie’s eyes were red-veined, but he looked lost in the wonder of it -- and after he came, he pulled out, shifted down, and rested his head on Timothée’s chest.

“Okay. Okay.” Timothée said, feeling spent. He gathered Armie in, not knowing what feeling to hold on to. 

“What?”

“I’m not sure I’ll ever feel like that again. Kind of afraid I never will.” Timothée’s voice fell to a whisper. He was tired.

“I mean. I know you’re a young man, but give me a bit of a nap before I do all the work again,” Armie chuckled.

“Oh...you jerk, that’s not what I meant,” Timothée groaned, and laughed, just a little. 

But then Armie shifted up, and they kissed again, and again, and Armie held Timothée against his warm body until Timothée fell asleep.

~

The light of early afternoon woke him up, and footsteps, and the smell of fried eggs and some kind of spicy baked thing.

Timothée’s body felt deliciously worn out. He sat up and immediately winced, then shook his head. 

Armie chuckled, setting the tray down beside him. 

“You’re a god for bringing me breakfast. I don’t know why Miss Liz lets you out of her sight.”

Armie’s eyebrow quirked. “You’re such a kid. I should’ve known the way to your heart was breakfast food. But -- the missus called first thing to ask me if we fucked.”

“I hope you lied about how much I begged and spared my dignity.”

“I...really liked how much you begged. And I told her as much.”

“Oh.” Timothée concentrated on his eggs for a moment, and on the coffee sitting near them, and wondered if his skin would just stay permanently pink for however long Armie and Liz let him remain in their lives.

“Your wrists are fragile, but when you wanted to fight my hold you could. Made it feel like more of an accomplishment to hold you still.”

“You do that with Liz, too?” The eggs had just a little cayenne sprinkled over them, and were gone in four quick bites. Timothée guiltily wiped the bit dripping down his chin.

“...It’s weird.” Armie clambered onto the bed, leaned back, his hand idly running down the bumps of Timothée’s spine. “I don’t want to get that rough with someone who doesn’t have it in them to fight me.”

Timothée looked behind him and snorted. “You’re fully twice as large as I am, dude.”

“It’s not that. It’s that if you had to, you would. It’s...probably a whole bag of cultural bullshit, but I feel like I don’t need to hold anything back with you. Anyway. Did...did you like it?”

“I don’t know,” Timothée frowned thoughtfully, drawing out the moment, watching Armie’s face fall before he smirked. “We’d better try again just to make sure.”

~

The weekend passed in a swift haze of wearing nothing but bathing trunks, fishing enough to fill an ice box with a thank-you and apology gift to Elizabeth, and various other things that Timothée knew Elizabeth would hear all about in the early morning phone calls.

There was getting trussed up with his wrists to his ankles while Armie taught him to breathe through his nose while sucking cock. That lesson took a few hours, and when it was done, Timothée’s voice sounded like a veteran smoker. Afterwards Armie treated him like the most precious thing on the planet, making him lemon tea with honey, kissing him between sips.

There was learning how to fuck Armie just the way he liked it, which was much harder and rougher than when he did it to Timothée.

There was also more poetry, and a moment when they were swimming in the lake, and it felt so much like shooting the film that Timothée almost slid back into character.

And the weekend passed before they knew it, and Timothée was leaning back against his car, his bag already in the trunk.

“You sure you don’t want to bring back any fish? We caught a ton.” Armie was leaning against the car next to him, their shoulders touching.

“Not sure the airlines would enjoy it.” Timothée nudged him sideways with his shoulder. “You’re absurd.”

“I love you.”

Timothée fell silent, turned his head, just looking at Armie, who wouldn’t look at him. Finally the guy was blushing.

“I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> "I had to take a monthlong detox when we finished shooting" comes from [this article from W](https://www.wmagazine.com/story/call-me-by-your-name-interview-armie-hammer-timothee-chalamet). Beware of the gorgeous photos. If you want more Timmy, [this is a great interview too](http://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/timothee-chalamet). Armie talks about how he likes bondage and restraint but doesn't want to do it with his wife [over here](http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/news/a13399/armie-hammer-rough-sex/).
> 
> I wrote a small epilogue to this as a [drabble on my fic tumblr](https://nothing2fic.tumblr.com/post/168130927754/back-in-tennessee).


End file.
